Banks should evaluate whether a borrower is likely to default. The author applies several techniques in the extensive mathematical literature of stochastic optimal control/dynamic programming to derive an optimal debt in an environment where there are risks on both the asset and liabilities...

The analysis of climate change is confronted with large uncertainties that need to be taken into account to arrive at meaningful policy recommendations. The main contribution of economics to this interdisciplinary task is to provide formal frameworks and techniques for analyzing climate policy...

There is a general agreement that (a) climate change is one of the most serious environmental problems, that (b) the analysis of climate change is confronted with a large degree of uncertainty and (c) that these uncertainties need to be taken into account to arrive at meaningful policy...

Quotas for special groups of students often apply in school or university admission procedures. This paper studies the performance of two mechanisms to implement such quotas in a lab experiment. The first mechanism is a simplified version of the mechanism currently employed by the German central...

An overlapping generations model is set up in this paper to analyze social security policy in a representative democracy with asymmetric information. The model considers not only redistribution between generations but also redistribution within generations according to individual labor incomes....

Estimations of the shadow economies for 145 countries, including developing, transition and highly developed OECD economies over 1999 to 2003 are presented. The average size of the shadow economy (as a percent of "official" GDP) in 2002/03 in 96 developing countries is 38.7%, in 28 transition...

This paper analyzes intergenerational redistribution in a 2-period overlapping-generations model of a representative democracy. The model incorporates redistribution between generations and redistribution within generations, allowing for heterogeneous labor productivities in the working...

We analyze students’ knowledge and risk perception of four technologies. The aim is to find out whether there is a relationship between area of study (self-selection) and progress of study (socialization) on the one hand and risk perception of technologies regarding health, environment and...

Abstract: The Renewable Energy Source Act (EEG) promotes German biogas production in order to substitute fossil fuels, protect the environment, and prevent climate change. As a consequence, green maize production has increased significantly over the last years, causing negative environmental...

The standard indicators used to compare cross-country innovation are in the Global Competitiveness Report (GCR). But there are problems with aggregation and response bias with these largely self-reported measures (Hollanders and van Cruysen, 2008). We propose a theory-based metric using Data...